Crow
by Zwei Shonagon
Summary: "I am a crow, hoarding your words like a palace of fantasies." Eriol/Tomoyo, because not all loves have happy endings.


Author's Note: Card Captor Sakura was my very first anime. So much stuff flew over my ten-year-old head. Clamp, you certainly introduced many adult concepts into a children's show.

Disclaimer: not mine.

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 **Crow  
** I-V

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I.

Beauty is not brilliance.

Daidouji Tomoyo knows this. Beauty she has in spades, even at ten, with Medusa hair and the porcelain face of a child-Helen. But next to Sakura, she is nothing, even though Sakura's features are more round than rich, more cute than cutting. But Sakura at rest is bright, and Sakura smiling is more radiant than the scalding sun. Next to Sakura, Tomoyo pales away.

Like a plant, a flower, Tomoyo bends first and wonders later. Why is it, for all her gifts, she is such a pale backdrop? Was it destiny, a genetic fate inherited from her mother? At ten, there are two ways to approach this situation. One is envy. The other is desire. Tomoyo is just good enough, young enough to pick the "better" outcome. Tomoyo loves Sakura, and even though she's too intelligent to not know (sense) the deadline, she throws herself head and heart first anyway. The camera, the costumes—those are just future-mementos, preparation for the day Sakura leaves.

It comes earlier than expected. Who finds their soul mate at eleven anyway? Tomoyo is too shocked to fight, and by the time it occurs to her to claw back, to do so would require a conscious selfishness Tomoyo has consistently, carefully ironed out of herself. Besides, Syaoran is a good match. He is as pure and as bright as her lovely cousin. More importantly, they are fated, and who is Tomoyo, just a little girl, to go against fate? Tomoyo clings as lightly as she can, like a little band-aid, until Sakura forcefully tears away, so fast and fierce she doesn't even feel Tomoyo rip off.

Only Sonomi ever witnesses Tomoyo's grief.

"Oh darling," her mother says sadly. "There will be other loves."

But never another first. The unsaid words are so heavy even steely Sonomi droops. This is life and there is no escaping it, even with Clow Cards and cross-generational wishes.

Tomoyo could tell her. Confess. But the consequences—a lifetime of awkwardness, guilt, awareness—Tomoyo would rather die. And so Tomoyo carefully packs away the cameras and the costumes, with moth bags to keep them pristine. She won't throw them away, not yet, maybe never, because who knows when she'll need them again some day?

Tomoyo smiles, sings, and sacrifices.

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II.

Though he has the years of one adulthood, and the memories of two, it is not the same. The body has its own magic, its own desires, and though Eriol allows himself to age the moment Sakura becomes true mistress of the Clow Cards, it is still not fast enough.

"This isn't working," Kaho says.

Beautiful Mizuki Kaho is not the type to throw things, but her moon-aura rages, summons tides that pulse throughout the room dangerously. It's been a long time since Hiiragizawa Eriol's lost his temper. It's also been a long time since he was last in love.

"And here I thought you'd be used to dating younger men."

The problem with being brilliant is that it is too easy to find the right way to break the right people. Kaho has superhuman calm, near superhuman beauty, but she's also just a woman, holding a child's barely callused hand.

[—Sometimes, deep in the night, Eriol remembers butterflies and scarlet eyes over bitten lips—]

Despite everything, they hold on for another few years. Perhaps if they were immortal, with an eternity ahead of them. But Eriol is only half of Clow, and Kaho is a moon-priestess, not a time-witch. And Kaho is too beautiful a woman to be kept waiting for a not-child.

When Kaho leaves, she leaves behind nothing but her scent, taking even the smallest of her toiletries. Ruby Moon huffs amusingly about this.

"I was hoping to inherit at least some perfume!"

It takes everything in Eriol to crack a smile. It doesn't help he's still young enough to get chased out of the pubs.

"Go home, kid."

Eriol curses the man.

"May you trip on a thousand chairs."

Spinel shakes his leonine head and keeps his words to himself, even as Eriol drinks himself into the next week.

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III.

Tomoyo graduates from high school with top honors, but it's not even a footnote in the occasion that is Sakura's engagement.

"Just like your mother," Sonomi sniffs even as she casts a dark look at the ever-bemused Fujitaka. Fujitaka returns her gaze calmly while his son picks up the torch.

"She cries, I break you." Touya looms over Syaoran who, despite all these years, is still shorter than the older Kinomoto. "In fact, I feel like I should break you once, just to be safe."

"Brother!"

Tomoyo smiles, talks about the wedding dress, and retreats to her room to "plan". She gets halfway through a first pencil sketch before tears start bleeding onto the graphite.

For the first time in years, Tomoyo takes out the camera tapes and the costumes. She falls asleep with the film still playing, blue and ghoulish in the dark room, illuminating the scattered moth balls that flood the floor. Sonomi knocks, but does not force the locked door.

The next morning, Tomoyo takes an extra twenty minutes to put on her make up. She is on-time for breakfast, and early at Sakura's doorstep. They are going to go look at stationary, for the wedding invitations.

"Thanks for doing this," Syaoran mumbles. He looks tired, and he's holding his cellphone as if it's a beast. It worries Tomoyo slightly that Sakura is marrying into a family such as his—big, old, burdensome—but the alternative is too terrible to entertain.

(At least not in the daylight, not without whiskey and a thimbleful of selfishness.)

"It's my pleasure," Tomoyo answers truthfully and says nothing about the pain.

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IV.

The problem with being a reincarnation of a man like Clow, is that it's hard to tell where Clow ends and Eriol begins. Eriol is born knowing almost everything. School is a joke, and even in his music, Eriol catches himself playing Schumann's Second in a certain manner. Not perfectly, because it is impossible to play Schuman's Second Sonanta perfectly, but in a certain style—

Eriol leaves Schumann alone, and sticks to pieces so virtuosic, he can forget the coloring of the notes are not necessarily his.

"You've put on weight!" Ruby Moon screeches.

"It's called a beer belly," Spinel supplies helpfully.

At least the piano doesn't talk back.

Maybe Eriol never really began. Maybe he's just a remnant, a reduced reflection of true glory.

"Listen to yourself," Spinel snorts. "If she were here, you think she'll be happy?"

Eriol knows Spinel is talking about Kaho, but often Eriol thinks another woman. What would she think?

Family was—is?—Clow's one and only failing. Clow never had a child, although many women offered. Eriol doesn't want to think too closely about why the only woman Clow ever wanted _couldn't_ give him a child.

She would have called it fate.

The wedding invitation is the palest mauve and substantially heavy. It has Sakura's name, but Tomoyo's touch is obvious. Eriol considers it, flexes it between his fingers.

"It's been a while since we went to Japan!" Ruby Moon trills.

"Anything to get out of this weather," Spinel sniffs. London fog makes his fur curl.

Eriol wonders if Kaho received an invitation. Probably. Most definitely.

"Master, you better start working out. I am not bringing you out like this!"

"What, you're going to walk me like a dog?" Eriol snorts.

Ruby Moon proves she is, despite her genderless body, a woman.

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V.

Kaho sends a gift with her apologies. She's mid-way through a spiritual cleansing ritual and unable to make it. Only Tomoyo instantly reads in between the lines.

"I wish she could be here," Sakura frets.

Syaoran has his suspicions, but says nothing beyond a single shared look with Tomoyo. Touya holds the gift gently—a length of gorgeous white lace—and has a hang-dog expression for all of one hour.

Eriol's flight is unexpectedly difficult. He arrives on a day packed with catering consultations, final seating arrangement, and last-minute fittings. Sakura tries to make it to the airport, until Syaoran told her to stop being ridiculous.

"He can find his way here himself!"

In the end, it is Tomoyo who rides to the airport with her bodyguards in long black car. It is Tomoyo who waits, one eye on the arrival gate, another eye on her cellphone.

(—No, Meiling is not allowed to sit next to Chiharu, not unless you want a half broken Yamazaki—)

"My!" she can't help but exclaim when she finally sees him. Without even thinking, she raises a hand to cover her mouth.

"Well met, Tomoyo-san," Eriol says smoothly.

Eriol has grown tall, lean, and pale. He looks almost fragile, which is hilarious to contemplate. Hiiragizawa Eriol, breakable.

 _Ha_.

He's even changed his glasses. Once round and firmly of the 90's, they were thin rectangular glass pieces now. Tomoyo almost misses the unfashionable horn-rims.

"It's been a long time," Tomoyo says. They don't shake hands. This is Japan, not London.

"Not that long," Eriol disagrees. "You've grown into a beautiful woman."

"Now you sound old!" Tomoyo tries for a playful tone and ends up sounding unsure. She clears her throat. "You look well too," she amends.

"Why thank you. I thought you noticed."

Arrogant asshole.

"The car is just around the corner—"

"Are you rushing me, Tomoyo-san?"

Tomoyo smiles and wastes no time delivering Eriol to Syaoran's doorstep.

Fireworks.

Syaoran growls and Sakura bustles about like a demented fairy. Despite her raised voice, Sakura's eyes have a soft expression, so mature, so loving, Tomoyo has to distract herself with floral arrangements.

Calias, Tomoyo decides. Big, yellow, happy calias.

She doesn't notice Eriol notice her departure.

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